


Close My Eyes Again

by brynnmck



Category: American Idol RPF, David Cook (Musician)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-23
Updated: 2009-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 19:12:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> The thing is, while Neal prides himself on relishing a good headfirst dive into death metal and horror flicks and assorted other macabre shit, there are times when it's just him in the dark on a bus that's grinding toward somewhere he can't remember, and he feels so small and disconnected that it genuinely scares the hell out of him.  Solitude always has a way of shoving him up his own ass.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close My Eyes Again

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Zabira for a helpful and awesomely speedy beta; any remaining mistakes are all mine. Title stolen from MWK's "Make Me."

Neal isn't sure what's more pathetic: the blank, black screen of the TV, or the fact that he's watching it anyway. But everyone else is asleep, guarding against the cold that Kyle caught three shows back, and Neal had wandered out to chill on the couch for a while because what the fuck, it was barely one in the morning. Only now it's two in the morning and he's too stubborn to sleep and too tired to drink and his bad hand is aching from cold and overuse and stupid mistakes and if he turns the TV on he'll wake someone up and it just… it sucks. 

He can feel the bleak mood starting to settle heavy over his shoulders, which he knows is bullshit—his job, his actual _job_ , is to travel around and play music with some of the coolest guys he's ever met, so his life is, by any non-asshole standard, pretty fucking awesome—but he's never learned how to shake it. The thing is, while he prides himself on relishing a good headfirst dive into death metal and horror flicks and assorted other macabre shit, there are times when it's just him in the dark on a bus that's grinding toward somewhere he can't remember, and he feels so small and disconnected that it genuinely scares the hell out of him. Solitude always has a way of shoving him up his own ass. 

"Hey," comes a sleep-thick voice from the darkness to his left. 

Neal does _not_ jump, because he never jumps. He calmly turns his head to the side to assess the spiky-haired, broad-shouldered, generally Dave-shaped shadow slumped against the partition. 

"Hey," he replies, pitching his voice as low as he can without devolving completely into growling. Someday he's probably going to have to quit smoking. "You're supposed to be sleeping—you get sick and we're all fucked, superstar." 

"Are you speaking as my musical director"—and the air-quotes are always, _always_ implied, despite the fact that Dave practically got down on one knee when he asked Neal to take the position—"or as my mom?" 

Neal shakes his head. "It's so fucking unfair that I know your mom, dude. The fact that I have to just let that go is a goddamn crime." 

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Dave muses unrepentantly, and shuffles closer to collapse next to Neal on the couch. "Speaking of hurting." He nods toward Neal's left hand, splayed upside-down on his knee like a dead bug. "Rough night?" 

"Yeah," Neal admits. He tries to stretch his fingers again and grits his teeth against the flare of pain, tiny sharp starbursts at every knuckle. "Too fucking cold out there. Shoulda worn gloves." 

"Dumbass," Dave says, and before Neal can really register it, Dave's got his fingers wrapped around Neal's, pressing experimentally from joint to joint, his head bent in concentration, working out the rhythm. His hands are warm and his sweatshirt must be new; there's a little bit of dark fuzz caught in the hair at the back of his neck. 

It's not the most hardcore thing Neal's ever done, getting a hand-massage from one of his best friends in the dim light of a pre-dawn bus ride. But it's Dave, and he started it, and anyway, he's obviously learned the hard way that "remember the seventy-nine times you cried on national TV" is just lying in wait for him every time he accuses any of them of a Man Law violation, so he doesn't open that door all that often these days. And Neal can't deny that it feels really fucking good—not just the heat or the slow loosening of his tendons, but the _contact_. Dave's calluses catching against his, Dave's thigh under his forearm, the easy rhythm of Dave's shoulders as he breathes. Suddenly the reckless, hurtling momentum of the bus seems to curl up into a simple, soft mechanical song, easing into Neal's veins. 

The temptation to close his eyes and let his head fall back against the couch is almost overwhelming, but there's getting a hand-massage and then there's getting a hand-massage and getting all orgasmic about it, and. Well. Even with Dave, Neal tries for some lines. 

"Dumbass," Dave murmurs again, low and affectionate in his typical never-heard-of-lines kind of way. "You fuck up your hands and we're all fucked, guitar hero." 

Neal snorts. "Yeah, tell me that about eight years ago." He can still see her face, see the black leather jacket of the asshole she was with, feel the bright, clean bloom of pain in his hand as it hit concrete. And he can still feel the terrified contraction of his heart and gut when the doctor had said _surgery_ , which had been the last word Neal had heard until _might never play the guitar again_. So fucking stupid. "Besides," he goes on, "if there's one thing we've got in this band, it's guitarists." 

"Aww, don't make me say it, Tiemann," Dave drawls, looking up with a mock-pained expression and his eyes crinkled at the corners. "You guys are here to feed _my_ ego, remember?" 

Neal can't help the grin that slides across his face. "Lay me down right next to apathy, man." 

And Dave groans, of course, but he also drops his eyes and breaks into a delighted, embarrassed smile, just like he had the first time Neal had shown up unannounced at Dave's bar, or when he'd asked Dave to join MWK for real. Neal's never been able to figure out how a guy who everybody— _everybody_ —likes can always be so fucking thrilled when people like him. He should damn well be past that with Neal, anyway, but then again, Neal still can't resist smiling back at him, every single unnecessary time, so maybe they're both losers. 

"That chick was crazy," Dave says suddenly. 

"What? Who?" Neal starts mentally cycling through the faces—and, fine, the bodies—of the group of girls who'd hung around after the show. Nobody he remembers had wept uncontrollably or worn a wedding dress or given any of them My Little Pony versions of themselves, so given their definition of "crazy" these days, he's coming up empty. 

"That chick," Dave repeats, tapping Neal's knuckles with the pad of one finger. 

Oh. That chick. 

Neal shifts in his seat. "You never even met her." It hadn't exactly been a proud moment for him; it's not something he tends to talk about sober. "Whatever, it was a long time ago." 

"The splinter in my hand is always there to remind me," Dave sings softly. He's back to the massaging now, head bent so that his breath ghosts against Neal's fingers, and between that and the warm dark and that sleep-rough voice wrapping around Neal's own words, it's all Neal can do to keep breathing normally. He'd yank his hand back, but there's no way to do it without being a dick, and Dave's just being Dave, he doesn't mean it as torture. 

It's Neal's problem that he can't be content with what he has. That he can't look at the smooth, sweat-slick curve of Dave's neck as he bends toward the microphone without wanting to trace that line with his own tongue. That he can't feel the trusting weight of Dave's head on his shoulder without wanting to nudge him into a kiss. That he can't catch the bright flare of Dave's grin as they come offstage without wanting to shove him against the nearest wall and make him beg. And it's going to stay Neal's problem, because Dave and Andy are all he's got some days, the two people who know all his shit and love him anyway, who miss him when he's gone. And if Neal's learned anything from the pin in his hand, it's that the few things that are truly important to him have to be held fucking sacred. 

So. No more throwing himself against immovable objects. He damn well knows how lucky he is, and he's never taking that for granted again. 

“I think,” Dave says. The rhythm of his fingers falters, then starts up again. “I think life's too short for regrets, you know?” 

“Yeah,” Neal agrees. The abrupt shift in topic breaks the moment, enough so that he can rest his head against the cushion behind him after all. This, he can deal with; Dave always gets philosophical toward the end of a tour. It's fucking adorable, really, and none of them mind if the conversations start stretching toward dawn—they can hear the clock ticking, too. Besides, after the shit Dave's been through, if he wants to talk about the meaning of life, the very least Neal can do is listen, and he'd fucking end anybody who even suggested doing otherwise. 

“I mean,” Dave goes on. “It's just. Neal, I—” And then, all in a rush, “Ohfuckdon'thateme—” and he half-stands, keeping one knee on the couch, leans down and presses his mouth to Neal's. 

He tastes like mint toothpaste and an echo of cinnamon gum, cool-hot, and his beard prickles against Neal's skin, sparking tiny points of sensation all around his mouth. Neal's brain kind of whites out for a few seconds while his _entire fucking world_ rearranges itself around the fact of David Cook kissing him, and then his instincts kick in. He fists his hand in Dave's soft new sweatshirt and yanks him closer. Dave groans, somewhere between heat and relief, and his mouth falls open and then closes again, catching one of Neal's lip rings teasingly between his teeth. And oh, fuck, Neal is gonna make him live up to that, but he's got one question first, and that is— 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Cook, why the hell didn't you say something?” He's shocked at how his own voice sounds, like it's been dragged over a rough road already, and maybe dunked in whiskey at the end of it. He should really probably quit smoking. 

Dave's eyes are wide; his heart is thudding under Neal's hand. “I don't know, why the hell didn't _you_ say something?” 

“You're my best friend, you asshole, I didn't want to fuck that up!” It's a struggle to keep the volume to something below bandmate-waking level, but he's doing his best. They're both about a millimeter from laughter, hanging on by a thin, stubborn ribbon of pride. 

“Well, there you go! Right back at you!” Dave hisses. 

Which is a fair point, or at least it would be if Dave didn't practically take out a half-page ad in Vanity fucking Fair when he gets excited about a _sandwich_. “That's—not—” Neal splutters. 

“Not how it _works_?” Dave finishes for him. “So I'm supposed to be the one to spill my guts, even though I can't handle the idea of doing this without you? Or am I supposed to wait for the next album you write to come out so I can find out how you feel about me way too late to do anything about it? Four weeks left, man, I—” He lifts a shoulder, and at some point in the last few sentences he's gone from amused to oddly young and vulnerable, and it hits Neal right in the gut. If Dave's eyes are shiny on top of everything else, Neal is going to have no choice but to crawl in a hole and die. “I don't know what you're doing after this. I was fucking terrified of screwing things up, okay, but I didn't know where you were gonna go and I didn't want to miss my shot.” 

Neal has to inhale and exhale a few times, let that sink in. “You… didn't know where I was gonna go?” he repeats, trying to make it make sense. 

Dave gives him a long-suffering look, only slightly less effective with the added distraction of his kiss-swollen mouth. “Tiemann,” he says. “I don't know if you've noticed, but you're kind of a musical badass, and when we get back to L.A., I'm pretty sure there's gonna be a line around the block. And I wouldn't blame you—I know that following an American Idol around isn't exactly your greatest career aspiration.” 

And Neal's never had Dave's gift for saying the right thing off the cuff, when it matters. Put it in a song, fine, and shove it in front of someone else to sing, he can do that. As a matter of fact, he's got notebooks full of all the stuff he's been wanting to say to Dave for years now. But that's for later, and this is now, this is Dave's face two inches from his and waiting, and Neal forces out, “Fuck the line. Just fuck it, okay?” Once he's started, it gets easier; he feels his mouth curving. “I went to _Disneyworld_ with you, dude. I played guitar for _Mickey Mouse_. There was _fake snow_. I had that goddamn shiny happy world peace song stuck in my head for a week.” He lets his hand splay out against Dave's chest, bracing him. “Fuck the line.” 

No answer right away, and for freakishly long seconds, Neal's stretched out on the rack of wondering if he somehow managed to fuck everything up after all. But he keeps his eyes on Dave's face, so he's got a front row seat to see him just sort of light up from the inside like a human jack o' lantern, like every one of his unnecessary _me, seriously, are you sure?_ moments all rolled into one. 

“Okay,” Dave finally manages, his voice hoarse, “okay, that's good,” but by the time he gets that far, he's beaming so much that Neal's half-afraid the driver's going to see it. Not to mention the fact that his eyes are unmistakably wet now, and if Neal's being honest with himself—which he definitely isn't—his own throat is feeling embarrassingly tight, so clearly he's got to do something before they turn into an Oxygen Saturday-night movie and end up fucking _cuddling_ or something. 

So he leans back a little and looks up at Dave with as much mock-offense as he can muster. “So. That's what you came back here for, huh? To hit on me? In the middle of the night?” He clucks his tongue. “I was in a vulnerable fucking position, man, I can't believe you…” 

Dave laughs, the sound bursting out of him so clean and pure that it makes Neal's chest hurt. He swears if he lives a hundred years he'll never get tired of that sound. “Well, hey,” Dave shoots back, “if you want me to leave you some time to work through your feelings, sweetheart—” 

“Nope,” Neal says, and lunges forward, taking advantage of Dave's surprise to reverse their positions so that he ends up straddling Dave's lap, knees firmly planted on either side of him. Dave's eyes are narrowed in a challenging half-glare, but he doesn't make a move to resist. He's breathing ragged in the quiet, lips parted, hands resting on Neal's thighs. Anticipating. Tempting. 

Just that, and Neal's already so hard he can feel the ache in every nerve. “Oh,” he breathes, balancing on the edge of the cliff, one last nod to self-denial, “Fuck, Dave, I'm gonna do things to you—” 

“Yeah,” Dave half-moans, vowels dragged-out and desperate, and his eyelids flutter shut and okay, self-denial can fuck the fuck _off_ , and Neal sinks down onto Dave's waiting mouth. 

Jumble of sensation, like standing at the crossroads of everywhere he's ever wanted to be and the only choice is which direction he wants go first. Dave's tongue in his mouth, wet and eager. Dave's fingers tracing his tattoos from memory. Dave's voice murmuring filthy things against his skin. Dave's hips stuttering against his, the hard, hot bulk of his cock against Neal's thigh when Neal gasps and drives down onto him. It takes all of Neal's senses just to even start to process it all, and that's why he only barely hears it when a tired, annoyed voice mumbles, 

“Dude, what the hell are you—oh.”

They break apart guiltily in the time-honored tradition of people unexpectedly caught getting it on, and when Neal's vision clears enough to make out the shape in the doorway, he's half-relieved and half-nervous to realize that it's Andy. Hair smashed flat on one side and static-tousled on the other, big eyes blinking owlishly at them both. And it's not like Neal's worried that Andy's going to judge them or anything, especially seeing as he and Neal have found themselves tangled in more than one drunken make-out session over the years—usually with Jennie giggling in the background—but still. Band dynamics. It's complicated. And when it comes to this, Andy's the one who matters most of all. 

“Uh,” says Dave. His sweatshirt is caught up around his armpits, and his fingers are knuckle-deep in Neal's belt buckle. “Hey?” 

Andy stares at them for another few seconds, then yawns and shakes his head. “Don't break the TV,” is all he says. "Cartoons tomorrow.” 

Neal thinks he catches the barest hint of a grin as Andy slides the partition shut.


End file.
